Community Commons

Thanks to Ken and Dorcas Lounsbery’s generous donation, the second floor Community Commons has become a haven for students on campus. They’re able to eat, study, and socialize in comfort with amenities well suited for hard-working students. Continuous donations and support from our dedicated alumni allow us to continue to provide for the next generation of lawyers and attorneys.

“Sleep is my vice of choice,” says Maresa Talbert ‘17, founder, CEO, and lead lawyer of the Talbert Law Office, APC, a firm specializing in business and nonprofit development and intellectual property law. And if sleep is Talbert’s vice, then a relentless entrepreneurial spirit is her virtue. Hailing from a small town in Texas, she says humbly that she always knew she was meant to do exceptional things. And she works tirelessly— literally— to achieve them.

When she decided to attend law school in 2014, Talbert was in the Navy, considering JAG as her next logical step. Just after receiving her letters of acceptance, however, she was relocated to Virginia for a one year tour and needed to defer. Unsurprisingly, California Western was the only school that promised to hold her seat for the year, a decision which proved fortunate both for her and for the California Western community.

Upon her arrival at California Western, Talbert discovered the school’s broad community of nurturance— and, as is her habit, immediately began her own nurturing of the community. In addition to eye-opening academics and inspiring clinical experiences, she immersed herself in the school’s “familial culture and atmosphere,” particularly through the Black Law Student Association. As one of only seven or eight Black students in her year, Talbert says her participation in BLSA, first as secretary and treasurer and later as a mentor for entering students, “felt like family, always having someone to reach out to who understood my experience.”

As a BLSA member, she was instrumental in developing culturally relevant events on and off campus, building a network that ultimately extended throughout San Diego. This led to her becoming a member of the Earl B. Gilliam Association, which she was heavily engaged in as a student member, before serving on the Board immediately after her graduation from CWSL, eventually becoming President, and currently filling the role of Immediate Past President. The association, she says, “always feels like coming back home.”

Talbert recalls with gratitude the transformations in her thinking that California Western professors and staff helped facilitate. From Leslie Culver, who was then the mentoring professor for BLSA, she learned fundamental law skills and the evolving place of Women in the Law. From Professor Laura Padilla, she learned business organization and “fell in love” with business law, thinking, “I could do this.” She took every class that Professor Fink taught, relishing her “incredibly dynamic” approach to teaching and her modeling of “what it means to be a top-notch professional.” Her experience in the New Media Rights clinic proved most decisive in setting the course for her career, exposing her to the kinds of clients she now works with and loves, not to mention the “brilliant mentorship” of Professor Art Neill. Finally, Professor Vickie Turner, Talbert’s supervisor while in the STEPPS program, became her model for professional responsibility. She says, “If there’s anyone— outside of my mother— who I aspire to be like, it’s Vicky Turner. She’s just so brilliant and carries herself with poise and grace.”

As is evident from her work postgraduation, Talbert is certainly living up to those aspirations. After a short stint in the corporate world, she recognized that she had a different vision of how she could serve her community. So, only one year out of law school, she created the Talbert Law Office, offering intellectual property, trademark, and contracts counseling to new businesses and nonprofits. Not only is she an entrepreneur but Talbert is also a disrupter: “The typical lawyer says, ‘I know what I’m talking about. I know what to do. You pay me for solutions. But I want my clients to feel like this is a collaboration.” Accordingly, she provides her clients with thorough education on the options open to them, and offers flat fees and subscriptions services, to have full transparency on what she will provide and how much the client will have to pay for it.

She considers it a priority that her clients “know the why’s” of any legal action and don’t have to feel “reliant on someone else.” For her, this is more than a business ethic, “it comes from a fundamental principle of treating people the way I want to be treated.”

Talbert admits that this, again, was not the path she’d expected. She never pictured herself as an entrepreneur, navigating the challenges of running a legal business— staying within legal boundaries, managing scope creep, getting paid on time, and much more. “Being both the visionary and the implementer takes a lot of grit,” she says. But despite the challenges, the rewards for her grit are significant and growing with each year, particularly in the opportunities she is creating to serve the Black community in San Diego and for her employees and interns. Talbert notes that her clients will often ask, “Where have you been!? Where did you come from!?” while her employees and interns— many of whom are the first in their family in the law, and who may not have gone to a Top 50 law school— will say, “We look up to you, Maresa. Thank you for setting this example. You’re giving us the blueprint for success.”

As if this were not enough, Talbert also continues to serve in the Navy Reserves as a Surface Warfare Officer, is co-chair of San Diegans for Justice, and serves on the Board of Directors for the California Western School of Law Alumni Association. Among many honors she’s received, this year, the San Diego Business Journal named Talbert as one of the Top 50 Black Leaders of Influence and as one of the Top 50 Women of Influence in the Law in the San Diego community.“I’ve seen all of the stats,” she says, “I know 2% of all attorneys are Black women. But I don’t feel that statistic. I don’t feel disadvantaged. In fact, I feel the opposite. The truth is that I’ve always stood out. It’s just par for the course. But it’s not necessarily a problem. I’m here to do my best. And if you have a negative view of people who look like me, well, then today God has graced you with the opportunity to meet me and have your mind changed.”

When asked if she has any plans to slow down, she chuckles and says, “My husband is always saying that! ‘You never slow down’.” To which she responds, “You’re right. I do need to sleep… I’ll take it when I can get it.”